December 29, 1625: Birth of Thieleman J. van Braght

December 29, 1625: Birth of Thieleman J. van Braght

On December 29, 1625, Thieleman Jansz van Braght (Bracht) was born in Dordrecht, the Dutch Republic.

He is most famous for his editorial work on The Martyrs Mirror (Martelaars Spiegel). His original edition was published by …. in 1660. The most famous version of The Martyrs Mirror appeared in 1685, about two decades after van Braght’s death in 1664. The second edition is famous for its 100+ engravings by Jan Luyken.

He played a central role in the “War of the Lambs” (Lammerenkrijgh) among mid-seventeenth-century Dutch Mennonites.

— Last updated: 30 Dec. 2024 —

Read more

The Publisher of the Book Forged in Hell: The Output of Jan Rieuwertsz Sr., Spinoza’s Intellectual Agent

Nadler-BookForgedInHellThe title of this post is an allusion to Steven Nadler’s A Book Forged in Hell. That 2011 book is about Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, a work that scandalized secular and ecclesiastical authorities in the later 17th century — and has influenced philosophers and historians in recent years. The purpose of this post is to share a bibliography compiled by Piet Visser and his students in the 1990s. Piet retired in June 2014 from his professorship at the Mennonite seminary at the Free University in Amsterdam. Before that he was the chief curator of rare books and professor of book history at the University of Amsterdam. It’s in this earlier role that the list that you can find below originated.

Read more